Introduction
When do people become legends? What gives someone power? Does a person need special powers to be a hero? Do they even need to be known? Some of the greatest heroes I've ever worked with were unknown and unseen they called themselves the Unseen Force and they were some of the most interesting people I ever had the honor of working with. To call them normal would be a lie and an injustice because they, like me, as I discovered later, were Altereds, humans with special powers or abilities. Every member of the Unseen Force was unique and different from everyone else in the world.
Mickey, our leader, was cursed or blessed with the ability to detect evil and magical auras to a level that it could debilitate him when he wasn't wear his protective amulet. Prior to being enlisted into the Unseen Force he worked as an artificer by trade and had experience working with mystical objects. Unfortunately some of these encounters left him with a slightly less-than-sound-mind.
Bill, our second-in-command, was something of a technical genius. He built his own mech-suit with a plethora of weapons. It was faster and more powerful than any of the rest of us in the normal realm. I'm sure that there's something dark in his past that none of us have yet managed to pry out of him.
Jalia, with whom I probably formed the closest thing to a friendship that I could, was an academic, probably one of the most intelligent people I ever worked with. She was also very talented with computers and electronics. I suppose you might say that she could speak to them.
Rose was an accomplished spellcaster specializing in the divine: healing and nature related spells. She was one of the most ornery, stubborn people I'd ever met. She refused to ever admit that she was wrong, but when she actually helped she was occasionally useful.
Then there's Fodder. I won't claim that that's her real name, because I know that it's not, but she did little to distinguish herself before or after I joined up with them and I saw very little of her.
Victoria I also knew only for a short while. She was an accomplished sharp-shooter and gun-bunny. Though I knew her only a short time, I got the impression that she knew what she was doing.
Mara was a fighter like me, but I always got the impression that there was a more spiritual side to what she did, more like a samurai. She was very good at what she did, even if her weapons seemed a little overly destructive, and we worked and trained together in our copious free time.
Selene was more like a ninja, she was fleet of foot and seemed to disappear at times. There seemed to be a spiritual or mental connection between her and her knives that was a little scary, but she got the job done.
Iris arrived after I did and was also a spellcaster, but her talents tended more towards the arcane: magics that bend nature instead of using it. She was accompanied by Pinky, a fairy of sorts, who acted as her familiar. Her greatest duty seemed to be helping Iris wade through her huge spellbook.
Buzz also arrived after I did and he was a talented sniper. In fact, he gave us quite a scare when he first arrived, but I'll get to that later. For now I'll suffice by saying that he was better with a gun than Victoria was and he proved it many times.
Lastly, there's me, Lia. Before joining the Unseen Force I made a living fighting on the streets, not as a punk but as a fighter. The real question you the reader might ask is how I, a small-town German girl, ended up fighting for a living on the American streets. Truthfully, it's a long story, but one you must know before you can understand my perspective on the goings on of the Unseen Force.
I grew up in the small town of Neundorf, Bayern, Germany, which used to stand about 3 hours north-east of Wurzburg. It consisted of about five roads, two stop-signs, and some farmland. It wasn't much, but it was home.
When I was in the 11th class, grade I think you Americans call it, which would've been the end of the Realschule for me unlike your 'high school' which go to 12 grades, and was preparing to take the Abet�r, or exit exam, I disappeared. In fact, in a way all of Neundorf disappeared. It was then that he showed up. At the time I didn't know his name, but now I know that he is called Sergio. I'm not sure how, but he managed to convince my entire hometown to destroy itself. Not in the way many small towns do, with people moving on, but in the way of war. The streets of Neundorf were bathed in the blood of its citizens.
For some reason, which I still don't fully understand, I was unaffected by whatever dark power Sergio used, so I watched, unable to stop it, as my friends and family literally tore eachother apart with their bare hands. As I'm sure you can understand, I couldn't just sit back and let it happen, but I also couldn't make them stop, no matter what I tried, so I instead sought out Sergio to make him stop. I suppose I should be glad I found him and confronted him, because he took 'pity' on me and transported me to the Shadow Realm, his personal dimension, instead of killing me.
It was nearly impossible to judge the passage of time in the Shadow Realm, but I know I was there long enough to figure out how to get around and spent several years living in an odd, corrupted town that stood within the Shadow Realm.
When I finally escaped that hell, I found myself not in Germany, but in America, in the city called Chicago. Luckily, I still remembered most of my English and was able to get by. Since I was officially dead it wasn't hard to establish a new identity with myself as an American citizen, easier than you might think once I had the right connections.
I established myself quickly in the underground bare-knuckle boxing rings and made enough to get by and then some. I made a few friends and acquaintances along the way, some more established participants who vouched for me and some even younger than I for whom I vouched.
How I found myself with the Unseen Force is part of the story I hope to tell, so I'll not get into it just yet, though I promise that I will make all things clear when it is time for me to do so, and not before.